bedkey

bed-key, bed key

From bed +‎ key.

bedkey (plural bedkeys)

1. (historical) An instrument for adjusting the tightness of parts of a bedstead.

   Synonym: bed wrench

   • 1905, Edith Nesbit, Oswald Bastable and Others, The arsenicators:

     There didn't seem to be much furniture in the house, but when we began to move it, it at once seemed to multiply itself with the rapidity of compound interest. We got all the clothes out first, in drawers and clothes-baskets, and tied up in sheets. Eliza wasn't much use. The only thing she could do was to look for a bed-key to unscrew the iron bedsteads; but Oswald and Dicky toiled on.

• “bedkey”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

• keybed